Black Friday may be a deal-hunter’s dream, but it's also a golden opportunity for hackers seeking to steal credit card information and other sensitive data.

Cyber-security firm Symantec has been tracking incidents of cyber attacks and security breaches for 19 years, and has found that they "rise exponentially" in October, November, and December.

Alex Rau, a national information security strategist with the firm, says that's not a surprise, given that more people are Internet shopping for the holidays.

"The more people shop online, it's a target for attackers and they will try to get the information and use it and sell it for their own purposes," Rau told CTV's Canada AM on Friday.

Shoppers who think that sticking with in-store shopping makes them safer should remember that there are opportunities for hackers to steal their information, particularly if they go south of the border.

In the U.S., chip and pin technology is not as common for debit and credit cards. A hacker may have planted malware on the point-of-sale swipe strip found on the sides or bottoms of older cash registers.

"You swipe your card and it skims the card and sends it to servers and they get thousands, even millions, of credit card information," Rau warned.

Earlier this week, an Ipsos Reid poll found that 1 in 3 Canadians plan to do their holiday shopping exclusively online this year. However, a survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab found that nearly a third of respondents admitted to paying little attention to the security levels of the websites where they shop.

If you're going online for deals, here are some simple steps to ensure private information stays that way:

  • Shop only at websites that you know and trust.
  • Check that the website is encrypted. Look for the web address to start with "https," and check that your Internet browser is displaying a lock symbol, Rau says.
  • Don't click links in emails that advertise deals or sales in case they are phishing scams, say the experts at Kaspersky Lab. Type the URL manually into your browser to confirm that it's real.
  • Don't use your sensitive banking or credit card information when you're connected to the Web through an unprotected wireless internet connection, common in public places like coffee shops and shopping malls. If your private wireless network is unprotected, add a password.
  • Ensure that the operating systems on your smartphone and tablet are up to date. Most users shop from these devices but don't run anti-malware software on them, and that makes them more vulnerable. OS updates contain the most up-to-date security features.
  • Use the same credit card for all online purchases in order to better track activity, find suspicious transactions, and set a low credit limit in case of theft, Kaspersky Lab advises.
  • Finally, check your financial statements on a daily basis through the holiday system, rather than weekly or monthly, "just to make sure the fraudulent transactions get discovered right away," Rau says.